Review: Jubilee Manor

Standard

Goodreads Summary:

The thrilling conclusion to Landry Park is full of love, betrayal, and murder–perfect for fans of Divergent, The Selection, and Pride and Prejudice In Landry Park, Madeline turned her back on her elite family, friends, and estate to help the Rootless. Now, in Jubilee Manor, she struggles to bring the Gentry and the Rootless together. But when Gentry heirs—Madeline’s old friends—are murdered, even she begins to think a Rootless is behind it, putting her at odds with the boy she loves and the very people she is trying to lead. If she can’t figure out who is killing her friends and bring them to justice, a violent war will erupt and even more will die—and Madeline’s name, her estate, and all the bonds she’s forged won’t make any difference. This conclusion to Landry Park, which VOYA dubbed “Gone with the Wind meets The Hunger Games,” is a richly satisfying, addictive read.

I really enjoyed the first book by Hagen,Landry Park (and I just re-read this blog post and it gets a bit spoilery, so be warned!) enough to re-read it before I dove into this one, and I was not let down by this sequel/finale.

One of the things I really appreciated in the first book was the language, it’s smart. Not just cleaver and witty – and there is plenty of that – but intellectually, I was often looking up words to check their pronunciation and to make sure they meant what I thought they did. I love that even though this is a YA book it’s not dumbed down.

While there was a lot of discovery and action in the first book, this one faces the characters with more physiological challenges. There is a mystery killer to be discovered, a scientific discovery to riddle out, and the continuation of social norms to be reshaped. The sequel continued to pit Madeline and David, along with the rest of the Gentry class, against the traditional roles of the class system and how to uproot it. I really liked how we continue to see Madeline’s struggle with forging ahead with what she knows is right, facing leaving behind the inheritance she looked forward to her whole life, and dealing with her new sense of power.

She and David’s relationship was really interesting to watch as well. I loved the chemistry between the two of them in the first book, as others have concurred it’s very Darcy/Elizabeth in the way that they challenge each other yet are pulled together based on their mutual respect for one another and similar goals. They have a lot of struggles in this one, but I think their issues and how they resolved them also showed how much the characters grew. It was also ended on what I think was a great note in the epilogue.

All in all, it was not as face-paced as the first book, and again I figured out some of the major twists before they happened, but I still quite enjoyed it and know these two books will be ones that I revisit in the future. Can’t wait to see what else Hagen comes out with.

Post navigation

2 thoughts on “Review: Jubilee Manor”

Dude, YES. One of the main reasons I fell in love with reading books was because I learned new things all the time – most often, I learned new worldviews and words. OH MY GOD THE WORDS. So, yeah, a good book that doesn’t dumb down its verbiage based solely on the lowest common denominator of the target audience is not my cup! Love intelligent writing, no matter the age group. /end rant.